The Inuit in Alaska speak eloquently of their “rights” to be granted larger quotas for whale hunting, so that they might compete more fairly with Japanese business interests. The Jari Corporation in the Amazonia in Brazil, struggles to cut trees in the rain forest and provide employment, in a sustainable way, without importing exotic species and without exploiting all the land they own. Yet they still use chlorine in their manufacturing operation, and still need to cope with the problems the previous management left for them. In the Great Lakes Basin, the U.S./Canada Joint Commission demands a chlorine ban for the Basin, citing abundant scientific evidence about habitat and wild-life devastation in the area, as well as mounting evidence of a link between chlorine in water and breast cancer. The meeting is attended by thousands of citizens supporting the ban, but the industry’s representatives protest the “emotionalism” of the presentations, and counter it with the so-called “hard facts”: veiled threats of unemployment and higher prices, due to a “premature ban.”

Contemporary society faces a wide range of environmental problems. In what ways might business be part of the solution, rather than the problem? The Moralist Model is one general response. It tends to focus on particular corporations which it treats as moral agents operating within our common moral system. As a consequence, it claims that, with various (usually modest) changes, corporations may become environmentally responsible.

This paper contends, on the contrary, that business has its own special “ethics,” which relates not simply to the internal nature of the corporation but also to the corporate (free market) system. Given this special ethics, business cannot in general be environmentally responsible in the manner that the Moralists demand. Instead, more far-reaching changes are needed within corporations and the economic system to promote environmental responsibility. Though the requisite changes are significant, there are forces pushing in the direction which the paper identifies.

In this paper we present six criteria for assessing proposed solutions to environmental risk problems. To assess the final criterion—the criterion of ethical responsibility—we suggest another series of criteria. However, before these criteria can be used to address ethical problems, business persons must be willing to discuss the problem in ethical terms. Yet many decision makers are unwilling to do so. Drawing on research by James Waters and Frederick Bird, we discuss this “moral muteness”—the inability or unwillingness to use moral language to solve moral problems—and suggest some underlying causes of moral muteness.

The debate about the differing philosophies of human-nature relationship is ongoing. Several studies discuss the need to develop and adopt a new environmental paradigm to replace the neoclassical economic paradigm predominant in Western societies. This issue has been discussed mainly at a societal level. Society or societies are, however, entities that consist of smaller particles. If a phenomenon is supposed to exist in an entity, signs of the phenomenon should also be found in its particles, business enterprises among others. This paper examines a shift of a managerial paradigm in a business organization, since not only the actions of individuals and governments but also those of business enterprises account for the preservation of the natural environment. It studies empirically how a managerial paradigm can shift from “traditional managerial thinking” to “environment-related management.” Two frameworks will be developed for this purpose.

The UNCED Earth Summit established two new principles of international justice: an equitable international order and protection of the environment. UNCED was a significant symbol, a morality play about environment and economics. Wealth is asymmetrically distributed; approximately one-fifth of the world (the G-7 nations) produces and consumes four-fifths of goods and services; four-fifths (the G-77 nations) get one-fifth. This distribution can be interpreted as both an earnings differential and as exploitation. Responses may require justice or charity, producing and sharing. Natural and national resources come into tension with the common heritage of humankind, exemplified in disputes about who owns biodiversity resources. Ethics has to learn planetary home economics.

Despite significant scientific uncertainties and strong public opposition, there appears to be an “iron triangle” of industry, government, and consultants/contractors promoting the siting of the world’s first permanent geological repository for high-level nuclear waste and spent fuel, proposed for Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Arguing that representatives of this iron triangle have ignored important epistemological and ethical difficulties with the proposed facility, I conclude that the business climate surrounding this triangle appears to leave little room for consideration of ethical issues related to public safety, environmental welfare, and citizen consent to risk. If my analysis of the Yucca Mountain case is correct and typical, then some of the most pressing questions of business ethics may concern how to break the iron triangle or, at least, how to expand it into a quadrilateral that includes the public.

Although contemporary methods of environmental regulation have registered some significant accomplishments, the current system of environmental law is not working well enough. First the good news: Since the first Earth Day in 1970, smog has decreased in the United States by thirty percent. The number of lakes and rivers safe for fishing and swimming has increased by one-third. Recycling has begun to reduce levels of municipal waste. Ocean dumping has been curtailed. Forests have begun to expand. One success story is the virtual elimination of airborne lead in the United States. Another is the rapid phase-out of ozone-layer depleting chemicals worldwide. Nevertheless, prominent commentators of diverse political persuasions agree in an assessment that conventional models of environmental law have “failed.” Many environmental problems remain unsolved: species extinction, global desertification and deforestation, possible global climate change, and continuing severe air and water pollution in urban areas and poor countries. What is more, successful environmental protection has come only at enormous economic cost. By the year 2000, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that the United States will spend approximately two percent of its gross national product on environmental pollution control. Academic economists have pointed out the nonsensical inefficiency of many environmental regulations, but usually to no avail.

Alan Strudler has written a stimulating and provocative article about deception in negotiation. He presents his views, in part, in contrast with our earlier work on the Mutual Trust Perspective. We believe that Strudler is wrong in his account of the ethics of deception in negotiation and in his quick dismissal of the Mutual Trust Perspective. Though his mistakes may be informative, his views are potentially harmful to business practice. In this paper, we present arguments against Strudler’s position and attempt to salvage the Mutual-Trust Perspective from his attack. Strudler’s work reaffirms the need for a more pragmatic approach to business ethics. We close the paper with a renewed call for more constructive and practical approaches to business ethics research.

This paper argues that the desirable features of postmodernism identified by Ronald Green are not exclusive to postmodernism; that to the extent these features are postmodern, they are not necessarily features of business ethics; that, with qualification, these are desirable features to include in business ethics; that the best way to accomplish this inclusion is by appealing to an Aristotelian model; and that postmodernism has implications for the legal environment of business.

I evaluate the adequacy of the three models of international business ethics that have been recently proposed by Thomas Donaldson, Gerard Elfstrom and Richard De George. Using the example of the conduct of the aluminum companies in Jamaica, I argue that these three models fail to address the most important of the ethical issues encountered by multinationals because they focus too narrowly on human rights issues and on utilitarian considerations. In addition I argue that these models also evidence an inadequate understanding of microeconomic theory. I end by proposing that these defects can be remedied by a model of ethics that incorporates a theory of moral rights, a utilitarian-based theory of the market, and a theory of justice.